


Another Bonding Moment

by Dilson_Writes



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Fluff, M/M, Plot, Plot with Fluff
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-05-19
Updated: 2018-05-19
Packaged: 2019-05-08 19:31:29
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,601
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14700717
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Dilson_Writes/pseuds/Dilson_Writes
Summary: Lance is bored so he follows Keith out of the Castle of Lions to race to a nearby planet and recounting the bonding moment they both shared.





	Another Bonding Moment

**Author's Note:**

  * For [moorauders](https://archiveofourown.org/users/moorauders/gifts).



Lance picked at his plate of goo, his hunger for lunch evaporated along with the feeling of enthusiasm, replaced with dullness. They had all been woken up for morning training, and after that it seemed like no one had interest in doing anything fun afterward, well if you count recalibrating the castle's defenses as fun, followed by more training. Lance sighed it seemed like everyone had been busy with their own devices, which seemed to be always the case. Coran would find always find something in the castle of mending, while Hunk and Pidge assisted him. Keith was always using the training deck, and Shiro and Allura would be in the observation deck going over who knows what.  
Which then left him, what shall he do? Wait were the space mice ever busy? It wouldn’t hurt to see he thought. It was true they weren’t a dog that you could play fetch with...wait can mice play fetch? That didn’t matter right now Lance thought he was bored. He decided to see if the space mice were anywhere, maybe they could do something together. He called around the castle for them but it seemed like they were nowhere to be found. After looking for what seemed like millennials he spotted them helping Pidge repair some piece of equipment that was hard to point out, mainly because of the excess wires covering it.  
“Hey, Pidge! Mind if I borrow the space mice?”, he inquired.  
“Sorry, they’re helping me repair my computer.” Three assisted her by passing on each tool in a line, spitting the overall effort the task required, while the one helped by moving some wires away.  
“Oh, so that’s what it is!”  
“Yeah it could take a while, so could you please occupy yourself elsewhere?” she asked.  
“Fine.”Geez doesn’t anyone have anything to do, he thought.  
Lance couldn’t believe it. Even space mice seemed like they had better things to do than him. He could always zone out to music until the group actually needed him. Or perhaps he could take Blue for a quick spin and be back just before anyone knows he’s gone. Satisfied with the second option, he made the trip over to his hangar. While on his way he spotted Keith going towards his own lion. Strange, usually Keith would be in the training deck attempting to decapitate a training drone, why would he need to leave and more importantly, why did Lance care?  
“Where oh where ’s mullet head heading off to,” he whispered to himself. If Keith also felt like a quick flight, Lance wondered, did he know about any cool planets to see on his way? Curiosity fueled his actions as he went towards his lion a little later than Keith to follow him. Once he made his way into his seat he traveled outside to chase Keith into the inky blackness of space. Suddenly a brilliant plan formed within his mind. Lance made sure he kept his distance from Keith so not to be noticed until he sped up and...  
Keith was deflecting sword slashes left and right trying to keep his balance and look for an opening at the same time. If it had been a real opponent their expression would be one with more fear, but the robot remained unphased (because it was a robot). After a minute of sparring, he had made it back to the level he had been working on for days. He would often start at the lowest level possible then quickly reach his actual caliber in a matter of minutes, and if he lost he would start back at square one. It was a frustrating training technique but patience yields focus, he reminded himself but he had been stuck on this level for quite some time and Keith really wanted to get it over with.  
“Commencing training level 10”, the drone stated spiritless. Keith took a fighting stance, and charged right at the drone, attempting to strike at the heart, the drone for saw this and blocked the attack with all of it’s might sending Keith’s Bayard into the sky. Once the instrument made contact with the ground it no longer took on the form of a sword, being out of the paladin's grasp.  
“End training.”, Keith commanded and the robot shut down signifying the end of his sword practice. He didn’t understand what he was doing wrong, how was he still stuck. Flashbacks of failed strategies flooded his mind. He decided to sulk in his lion, hopefully being in space would make him feel better. Keith wasn’t really a sore loser, but he was tired of theorizing more ways to get his butt kicked by the drone. Even though it would have been wrong to sneak out, wait... Why would it be wrong anyway? He could always just say that he had been patrolling the area’s out of the castles reach, to make sure they were in the clear. He got into some paladin armor, made his way into his hangar, to his lion, and finally out of the castle. With his lion he flew outward as far as he needed to before stopping kilometers away from the castle. There was something peaceful and almost surreal about just drifting in the void that was space. He allowed this sensation to take over his thoughts. Yes, this was he needed some alone time. Although he was just alone. No, he was training independently just a few minutes ago training. But that didn’t count as alone time, well it did but it was more frustrating than relaxing. Did alone time always have to be relaxing? Something else about Keith being alone was that he overthought a lot, getting trapped in his own brainwork, not noticing his surroundings. If he wanted to obsess over these thoughts he would have stayed in the castle coming up with ways to get over that training level. He needed to calm down, and just take in the peacef-  
“Boo!”  
“Augh! Quiznak!”, Keith shrieked. Lance bellowed with laughter at his successful jumpscare. He knew that Keith probably would have zoned out, thinking that he would be by himself, which made the perfect opportunity for him to attack.  
“W-what the heck? Why would you do that?”, Keith asked his face showing up on Lance’s dashboard startled.  
“Oh my god. I wish I saw your face! I bet it was priceless.”, Lance chuckled flying beside the red lion. “What are you doing anyway?”  
“I was just p-patrolling the area, what’s it to you?”  
“Patrolling huh?”, Lance started, “You know Keith, you really suck at lying.”  
“I’m not lying!”  
“So did I scare you that much?”  
“What?”  
“I mean I assumed I scared you based on your screams of terror.”  
Screams of terror what is with him? , Keith thought.  
“ I did not scream I- what are you even doing here Lance?”, Keith continued. “Couldn’t you find someone else to trouble?”  
“Well you see the thing was, everyone else seemed busy."  
“I was busy that’s no excuse!”  
“Patrolling yeah I know. Anyways you seemed like the only person doing something interesting so I decided to follow you to see what you were doing until I had a better idea”, he stated still giggling at Keith's reaction, “yeah so worth it.”  
“I knew you were annoying but I didn’t take you for the stalker type.”  
“While we’re here wanna have a race?”, Lance asked trying to ignore his previous comment. “Over to thaaaat planet over there it sort of looks like cotton candy.” He referred to a planet that had a pinkish blueish colour scheme with a mix of some of a violet atmosphere. It looked safe enough as far as enemy ships in sight, however, it was quite far from the castle ship, way farther than they needed to be patrolling or not.  
“I really don’t think we should travel that far.”, Keith stated but it was too late, Lance was already speeding away far from him. At first, Keith pondered if following Lance was even worth the trouble, the thought of Lance getting lost in space crept from the back of his mind. He sighed as he dashed over towards the blue lion.

Whether it had been for the reason that Lance would get them both in trouble or that he didn’t want him to get lost in space, Keith found himself racing his lion towards the blue paladin. The planet Lance had mentioned had turned out to be way farther than previously expected, giving Keith the chance to catch up with his teammate. Even though the red lion was considered the fastest between the two, that didn’t stop Lance from already tasting victory seeing that his so-called opponent was nowhere in range. Speaking of said opponent, in a matter of minutes Keith was already covering much more ground, than the last time Lance had checked. In shock that he was gaining on him, Lance decided that if he couldn’t outrace Keith he could out dodge him. The planet had an asteroid belt that lay around the diameter. Lance made dive headfirst into the asteroid belt, giving some of the rocks the occasional push into Keith’s direction with his lion’s tail. This proved to be ineffective, as Keith demonstrated red’s agility once more, dodging every rock in his path with ease. Lance took note of this and before he knew it Keith had already zoomed past him landing on the cotton candy surface.  
“Were we racing, because it kinda looked like you were trying to kill me!”, Keith complained.  
“Relax drama queen I wasn’t going to kill you”, Lance explained, “I was simply using my surroundings to my advantage.”  
“ Riiight. I won, now can we go back?”  
“Uh, first of all, I won!”  
“But I landed on the planet,”  
“But I technically made contact with the planet before you did!”, Lance argued.  
“Argh! You’re a pain. This is just like that time where you forgot that bonding moment.”, he muttered the last part.  
“What?”  
“Nothing. Can we go back now?”  
“Hold on I want to explore!”  
“You’re kidding right?”, Keith asked.  
“C’mon, Aren’t you the least bit curious about this planet?” Lance exited his lion helmet still on. This planet may have been pretty but it had no breathable air. Keith also left his lion to follow Lance. He thought that Lance of all people wouldn’t be the least bit interested about what a planet might hold, well unless he found the inhabitants of said attractive. While Lance was taking on his new surroundings Keith found himself staring above right above himself. They were really far from the castle. From here it just another single speck marking the black surface of space. He looked back to see Lance who was now observing some of the planet's vegetation which was not really something to look at really, considering there wasn’t really any. The only things that did seem to stand out on the planet were very jagged rocks that shot from the ground standing about six feet tall. They were coloured the same as the planet's surface with the tops ends shaded light purple. However looking closer Lance wasn’t just looking at the rocks, it had appeared he had been observing the contains within.  
“Keith you got to look at this”, Lance called. Keith decided to take a closer look at what had been so interesting about a bunch of rocks. Within those rocks, holes fingertip sizes were visible along with dents the size of someone's palm. Worm-like entities seem to be living with the rocks. Lance kept a rigid finger towards the hole a space worm was crawling out of allowing the worm to climb his nail and curl his finger. Keith peered at Lance’s face to get a glimpse of his reaction. Lance whose eyes were fixated onto his new friend, was smiling with childlike wonder so he didn’t see that Keith wasn’t looking at the worm but at him.  
“Isn’t it cool? I didn’t think that there was any life on this planet!”, he said looking up at Keith who, startled averted his eyes at him to look at the worm.  
“I didn’t think you of all people would be interested in the natives of this planet”, Keith said half-jokingly.  
“What do you mean ‘you of all people’?”  
“Nothing.”, Keith replied eyes now glued onto the worm. He wanted to look around some more, Lance’s worm now giving him a new sense of adventure to explore the planet. But he knew that now would probably be as good as time as any to get back to the castle. However just before he opened to mouth to the suggestion Lance had offered him to hold to worm.  
“W-what?”  
“It’s fine. Why? You scared of getting bit?”, Lance teased. Keith felt his eye twitch before taking the worm gently off Lance’s finger. Now, getting a better look at the species it had the body of a simple Earthworm, except with about eight bead sized eyes attached to either side of its head. They seemed to be the same colour as the rest of the planet blue and pink with green eyes. Keith had leaned in for a closer examination of the worm, however, startled the worm had jumped up and landed on his helmet. Keith was a bit taken back by this and flinched, however, remained calm after realizing his helmet was still on. He saw Lance laughing a bit out the corner of his eye.  
“What’s so funny?”, Keith asked.  
“No it's just ..” he continued stifling laughter, “you don’t have to be afraid Keith it’s just a worm.”  
“I’m not afraid!”, Keith assured but with the worm on his helmet, he could see it open its mouth revealing tiny rows of sharp teeth.  
“Uh.. are you going to leave them there or?”, Lance questioned pointing at Keith’s helmet. Noticing the predicament he took the worm by its end and threw him towards the ground, it wriggled around much faster than any worm on earth could and making its way to the top of it’s rock home.  
“Dude you could of hurt it!”, Lance complained.  
“Relax I didn’t kill it see?”, the worm had now reached the top of the rock where it and it’s brethren had been residing in. Suddenly it let out a strange almost infant like scream.  
“See you even made him cry, you're so heartless!”, Lance went over to his worm friend to comfort him.  
“ Shhh. It’s okay buddy! Mean old Keith can’t hurt you anymore.”, Lance soothed, however, the worm continued to do it’s high pitched quiet yelps. Keith rolled his eyes. Just then the ground began to rumble and shake until Keith had fell over backwards, and Lance had crouched down in an attempt to keep his balance.  
“What’s going on?”  
“Maybe he’s calling for his mommy?” Lance suggested.  
“Not funny!”  
“Not joking look!”, Lance pointed. Keith looked behind him only to see a carbon copy of the worm Lance was holding only jumbo size, and it seemed as the more it’s baby cried the larger it became. The paladins made a break for it as the ran as fast as they could to get away from the giant space worm. Lance could taste metal in the back of his throat but he didn’t care, he just hope he and Keith wouldn’t end up as today’s lunch special. They kept running until their lions came into view and they were almost scot free. However, it appeared as they had no such luck as the worm shot fabric-like substance towards them, trapping Keith and Lance as they were now wrapped in the silk, feeling like flies caught in a spider’s trap as they landed on the ground hard. The worms supposed mother had left them to come back later, knowing that there was no way they had no chance of escaping. Keith remembering the rows of teeth on the worm tried to keep calm and find a way out of this situation. Cutting himself free seemed like it was going to be a problem since his arms were glued to his sides plus the planet they had been on was far from the castle’s radar, so communication was a bust.. He attempted to use his teeth to cut his way through but the material proved to be resilient. He spat out the bitter taste of the silk left in his mouth.  
“Just forget about it Keith were are going to die.” he said, “Never thought this how I would go.”  
“Your not going to die idiot! We just need to find a way out!”, Keith said determined to get he and Lance out of this situation.  
“Hey Keith before we, you know get eaten and stuff there’s something I want to admit.”, Lance started solemnly, “I remember the ‘bonding moment’.”  
“We’re not go- wait you what?”  
“I mean, remember when Sendak tried to ambush the castle and when I got really hurt and you helping me, and you cradling me in your arms.”, he said mumbling the last part. Keith looked at Lance with utter disbelief.  
“Wait! If you remembered it why did you say you didn’t?”  
“Well Duh! I said it because it’s embarrassing. It makes me seem even more weak and useless than I know everyone thinks I am.”  
“Lance you were hurt it’s fine!”  
“But Shiro was still able to fight and I was no help. Also it was you that saved me of all people.”  
“You got hit by a bomb and survived! What’s weak about that? Besides your not useless your a great sharpshooter and strategist. What do mean ‘of all people’?”  
“If you're going to make say it, then fine! It’s because you are perfect! You had good grades, you were a great pilot in the Garrison, which you still are now, and because of that I was jealous and that’s why I made you my rival so could try to better at you then something.”, Lance felt his face flush from his confession, and the compliments he was giving towards Keith. He now understood why Lance always felt the need to compete with him. He thought Keith was better at him that everything, which made him feel less of himself. All this time he thought he was just being childish and annoying but he had been dealing with a lot of self image issues. Keith generally didn’t care what people thought of him but he could tell Lance was not that type of person. He was realizing that as they were to be soon be eaten by a giant worm.  
“Lance.”, Keith began trying to choose his words carefully to help Lance, “I’m not perfect, nobody is.”, Lance scoffed at this. “But what I am is sorry if I hurt your feelings and had not tried to talk to you before, I’m not good with helping people when it comes to their emotional needs but I can always listen if you have any problems in the future. One thing I do know is that it’s not good to keep all this negativity inside.” Lance began to laugh and cry a little.  
“I’m sorry did I say something wrong?”, Keith panicked.  
“No. Just thanks Keith.”, he said giving him a smile. Not one of Lance’s usual grins ™, but one that was earnest and genuine. A smile that seemed full of kindness. One that Keith hoped to see more often from Lance. “Hey Keith?”, asked Lance.  
“Yes?”  
“I’m glad you came with me.”  
He smiled back, not because he wanted to, but because he couldn’t bring himself to keep a straight face while looking him.  
Lance’s face lit up even more as he looked from Keith’s face from the rocks ahead. Neither of them spoke a word as they both had the same plan in mind. They had inch wormed over to the jagged rocks attempting to cut off their restraints. To their joy it had been successful, so whatever few meters they had left from their lions they dashed over to them before the mother worm could notice they were gone. However she saw them and made her way towards them as fast as her body could carry her. Luckily they had made it over to their lions right before they could end up like rolled up pieces of worm food again. They flew away wishing they would never see the likes of that planet again.

When they finally made their way back to the castle, it turned out they had been gone for longer than Keith had anticipated.  
“Where were you guys?”, Pidge asked, “You have been gone for at least two hours.”  
“Sorry were we needed by anyone?”, Lance asked.  
“Well we kinda had a mission but for some reason, you guys were nowhere to be found, what if we needed Voltron?”  
“Relax the important thing is you handled yourselves fine without us and without Voltron.”  
“Where you guys exactly anyways?”  
“Uhhhhhh……. Nowhere?” Pidge sighed.  
“Well it’s getting late, and I still got to fix my computer so I’ll believe you for now.”, she added glaring at Lance in particular. He gulped. As she walked away Keith decided to make the trip over to his room before then, however, Lance stopped him to say thank you one last time. Before going in the opposite direction. Keith walked back to his room Lance’s warm glaze engraved in his brain, being the last thing he thought about before he went to sleep and the first thing when he woke up that following morning.


End file.
